Google will not censor Middle East websites, the company’s regional boss told Maktoob Business in an interview on Tuesday, arguing that it is not its job to do so.
Internet censorship is a contentious issue in the UAE, where the telecoms regulator blocks websites deemed offensive to local culture or values. Pornographic and gambling sites are blocked by telecoms providers in the country.
"We do not censor sites and we have no plans to do so," said Husni Khuffash, manager of Google's operations for the UAE and neighbouring countries.
However, rather than being a principled stance, Google admits that its position it based solely on practicality. Hundreds of Web sites and videos are added to its Web sites every minute Maktoob Business was told, making it impossible to check each individually.
"We have a flagging system where users can notify us when they deem a site offensive and then we will make a decision as to whether it is removed or not... This is a system that works and we have no intention of changing that."
UAE authorities had reportedly asked Google to ban about 500 pornographic and anti-religious terms from YouTube, owned by Google, something that both the Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan Tamim and Khuffash have denied.
Khuffash said he had met with Dubai Police, but it was a "meet and greet" situation rather than a discussion of specific issues.
"Any government that has a problem with the way we operate can contact our legal department," Khuffash told Maktoob Business, adding that it always operated within the laws of the countries where it had a presence.
Google has a history of censoring content if asked to do so by the government of a country it wants to do business within. The company has been denounced and called hypocritical by Reporters Without Borders for submitting to China's demands to block web sites it disagrees with.
Google also censors certain types of content in Germany and in France.
In the Middle East, however, the California-headquartered company has so far managed to side step direct censorship, but admitted that if it was asked directly by a regional government to remove content, it would do so.
The company, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, set up operations in the Gulf two years ago.
A recent Google survey showed the company's .com and .ae domains in the region garnered a combined market share of about 96 percent of the search market.
Khuffash said the online industry remained "very healthy" despite falling revenue at newspapers.
"Newspapers and magazines cannot exist in their own right indefinitely. They need to be backed up by the internet. Business is very healthy in this medium. Any website that has not seen an increase in advertising revenues is doing something wrong."